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Eggs and Endorphins

4/22/09 10:30 am - Dreamwidth

Yeah, I've got a Dreamwidth account. It's mneme (no, no x. The x is a disambiguator).

I've heard a lot of alarmist "why is everyone going away" bits, so I figured it was worth explaining what -I- like about Dreamwidth -- at least in concept.

First and foremost, I'm not planning on leaving LJ or the LJ community. But that's part of the point. Among the tools and improvements DW has promised are features (some implemented, like journal import [though...is that disabled atm?] and journal crossposting and better OpenID suport, some not, like the ability to embed your friends page on other lj-like sites in your friends page for DW if you want) that let the "community" spread beyond a single site -- and isn't that the point? Why -should- we lose access to our friends posts or have to follow them with Yet Another Login whenever they move sites? Why should our communities be owned by an external entity -- rather than merely hosted by them?

So, I don't want everyone leaving lj and going to dw instead. I want a world where people post wherever they want -- and I can be part of their community if they're "my people" anyway. But supporting DW is a step in that direction -- hopefully a very large part.

Second, they seem to have a good, sustainable plan not involving selling out their principles or assuming large bags of cash will fall from the sky.

Third, their attitudes are more or less a direct response to a lot of the ljfail we've seen over the last few years; not "everyone gets to see everything", but "we can handle adult/spam/financial issues without treating our users as criminals or children."

Fourth? LJ used to regularly come out with new features -- you know, ones I used. But over the last few years, that has slowed to a crawl or less -- instead, all their new features seem to be things that benefit someone else (like advertisers, or whatnot)...which might be fine except that features -I- want; ones that make it easier to communicate with people, seem to not happen. DW, in a small number of months, has implemented a huge set of my wantlist for LJ (not least: separating "access" and "readlist" and getting rid of the "friend" designation), plans to implement a lot more, and in general, has proven very response to suggestions.

So yeah, I have a DW account. But don't worry, I won't be going anywhere.